Mavado: Mr Brooks ... A Better Tomorrow

Mavado's debut album, 2007's epic Gangsta for Life, introduced David Brooks to the world as a tormented dancehall visionary. On its followup, his eerie elegies again strike to the heart of the Jamaican gothic. Key to this aesthetic are Mavado's desolate vocal tones, suffused with conflict and turmoil. Drifting over bleak, minor-key arrangements like a spectral prophet, he finds salvation in swelling gospel chorales, blending their hope with his anguish to superb effect at the hymnal climax of On the Rock. Elsewhere, he works himself into a frenzy as bells toll on the martial Gangsta Nuh Play. A Better Tomorrow is an unrepentantly solemn listen, but, as the title suggests, there is light at the end of the tunnel: Overcome is a shimmering, opulent tale of hope.